The present invention pertains to an apparatus for cutting into lengths and bringing together a spine insert with cover boards for the mechanized production of book cases.
An apparatus of this type is known from EP 0 631 957 B1. A pair of cut length transport rollers for drawing the spine insert forward and for positioning the spine insert in a cutting device and a series of pairs of feed rollers for transporting the cut-to-length spine insert through a transport channel and into the roller applicator are cyclically driven by a jointly controlled servomotor. After a drawing-off length has been reached, the spine insert is clamped by a pneumatic cylinder while the spring-loaded pressing roller is separated from the roller that is directly driven by the servomotor in order to open the pair of rollers. The spine insert is cut off the material strip and transported into a waiting position by the pairs of feed rollers that now represent the only effective rollers. Subsequently, the clamping of the spine insert is released and the pair of cut length transport rollers is closed again. After the detection of a front edge of the infed cover boards, the cut-to-length spine insert is transported into the roller applicator in synchronism with the cover boards while an ensuing spine insert is simultaneously drawn forward by the defined drawing-off length.
A high cutting accuracy is achieved because the spine insert is at a standstill while it is cut off. The spine insert and the cover boards are brought together in a positionally accurate fashion as a result of the synchronous infeed of the spine insert to the cover boards by the pairs of feed rollers. The disadvantages of this apparatus can be seen in the intermediate transport of the spine insert into the waiting position and the pneumatic switch-over for opening and closing the pair of cut length transport rollers and for clamping and releasing the material strips, respectively, such that the maximum output per cycle is limited.